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THREE GREAT POEMS 



THANA TOP SIS 



FLOOD OF YEARS 



AMONG THE TREES 



BY 

William Cullen Bryant 
7 



ILLUSTRATED BY 

W. J. Linton and J. M.cEntee 



NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

27 6r* 2g West 23d Street 



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THANATOPSIS, ILLUSTRATED BY IV. y. LINTON. 

Copyright, 

1S77, 

By G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 



FLOOD OF YEARS, ILLUSTRATED BY W. J. LINTON. 
Copyright, 



i»77. 
By (',. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 



AMONCr THE TREES, ILLUSTRATED BY y. Mc ENTEE. 

Copyright, 

1874, 

Bv G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 



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THAN A TO PS IS. 



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THE ILLUSTRATIONS 

— Indebtedness acknowledged to David Scott and 
William Blake and (almost unknown as an artist) Isaac. 
Taylor, the author of The Natural History of Enthusiasm, 
The Physical Theory of Another Life, etc. — 

Designed and engraved by W. J. Linton. 




THANATOPSIS. 



' I "O HIM who in the love of nature holds 
•*- Communion with her visible forms, she 
speaks 
A various language ; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 




Under the open sky. 




Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 

Over thy spirit, and sad images 

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 

Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; — 

Go forth, under the open sky, and list 

To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 

Comes a still voice — Yet a few days, and thee 

The all-beholding sun shall see no more 

In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 





In the cold ground. 




Where thy pale form is laid, with many tears, 

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 

Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim 

Thy growth to be resolved to earth again, 

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 

Thine individual being, shalt thou go 

To mix forever with the elements, — 

To be a brother to the insensible rock, 

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 





Resolved to earth again. 



Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
Shalt thou retire alone — nor couldst thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, 
The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good, 
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 
All in one mighty sepulchre. — The hills 
Rock-ribb'd, and ancient as the sun, — the vales 
Stretching in pensive quietness between ; ^ . 

The venerable woods — rivers that move JBf 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 





{Unto dust shalt thou return. — Gen. 3: 19.) 



That make the meadows green ; and, pour d round 
Old Ocean's grey and melancholy waste, — [all, 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,' 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wings 
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce, 
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there ; 





- -: ^;Z~ '^'--"----i 



Old ocean's grey and melancholy luaste. 




And millions in those solitudes, since first 

The flight of years began, have laid them down 

In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 

So shalt thou rest, — and what if thou withdraw 
In silence from the living — and no friend 
Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase 





The dead reign there.— Exodus 12 : 30. 



His favorite phantom : yet all these shall leave 

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 

And make their bed with thee. As the long train 

Of ages glide away, the sons of men, 

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 

In the full strength of years, matron and maid, 

The speechless babe, and the grey-headed man, — 

Shall one by one be gather'd to thy side, 

By those who, in their turn, shall follow them. 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, that moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 




Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustain'd and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
Like one who draws the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



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THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 




W jLLIAIV| CU LI£nJ|J RYA NT 



NEW YOSK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

1879 




Copyright by 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 

1877. 



THE ILLUSTRATIONS 
DESIGNED AND ENGRAVED 

BY 

W. T. LINTON. 








A Mighty Hand, from an exhaustless urn, 
Pours forth the never-ending Flood of Years 
Among the nations. How the rushing waves 
Bear all before them ! On their foremost edge, 
And there alone, is Life ; the Present there 
Tosses and foams and fills the air with roar 
Of mingled noises. 



THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 



There are they who toil, 
And they who strive, and they who feast, and they 
Who hurry to and fro. The sturdy hind — 
Woodman and delver with the spade — are there, 
And busy artisan beside his bench, 
And pallid student with his written roll. 
A moment on the mounting billow seen — 
The flood sweeps over them and they are gone. 
There groups of revelers, whose brows are twined 
With roses, ride the topmost swell awhile, 



THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 



And as they raise their flowing cups to touch 

The clinking brim to brim, are whirled beneath 

The waves and disappear. I hear the jar 

Of beaten drums, and thunders that break forth 

From cannon, where the advancing billow sends 

Up to the sight long files of armed men, 

That hurry to the charge through flame and smoke. 

The torrent bears them under, whelmed and hid, 

Slayer and slain, in heaps of bloody foam. 

Down go the steed and rider ; the plumed chief 

Sinks with his followers ; the head that wears 

The imperial diadem goes down beside 

The felon's with cropped ear and branded cheek. 









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THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 



A funeral train — the torrent sweeps away 

Bearers and bier and mourners. By the bed 

Of one who dies men gather sorrowing, 

And women weep aloud ; the flood rolls on ; 

The wail is stifled, and the sobbing group 

Borne under. Hark to that shrill sudden shout — 

The cry of an applauding multitude 

Swayed by some loud-tongued orator, who wields 

The living mass as if he were its soul. 

The waters choke the shout and all is still. 

Lo, next, a kneeling crowd and one who spreads 

The hands in prayer ; the engulfing wave o'ertakes 

And swallows them and him. 



THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 



A sculptor wields 
The chisel, and the stricken marble grows 
To beauty ; at his easel, eager-eyed, 
A painter stands, and sunshine at his touch 
Gathers upon the canvas, and life glows ; 
A poet, as he paces to and fro, 
Murmurs his sounding lines. Awhile they ride 
The advancing billow, till its tossing crest 
Strikes them and flings them under while their tasks 
Are yet unfinished. See a mother smile 
On her young babe that smiles to her again — 
The torrent wrests it from her arms ; she shrieks, 
And weeps, and midst her tears is carried down. 



THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 



A beam like that of moonlight turns the spray- 
To glistening pearls ; two lovers, hand in hand, 
Rise on the billowy swell and fondly look 
Into each other's eyes. The rushing flood 
Flings them apart ; the youth goes down ; the 

maid, 
With hands outstretched in vain and streaming 

eyes, 
Waits for the next high wave to follow him. 
An aged man succeeds ; his bending form 
Sinks slowly ; mingling with the sullen stream 
Gleam the white locks and then are seen no more. 

Lo, wider grows the stream ; a sea-like flood 
Saps earth's walled cities ; massive palaces 
Crumble before it ; fortresses and towers 



THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 



Dissolve in the swift waters ; populous realms 
Swept by the torrent, see their ancient tribes 
Engulfed and lost, their very languages 
Stifled and never to be uttered more. 

I pause and turn my eyes and, looking back, 
Where that tumultuous flood has passed, I see 
The silent Ocean of the Past, a waste 
Of waters weltering: over graves, its shores 
Strewn with the wreck of fleets, where mast and 

hull 
Drop away piecemeal ; battlemented walls 
Frown idly, green with moss, and temples stand 
Unroofed, forsaken by the worshippers. 
There lie memorial stones, whence time has gnawed 
The graven legends, thrones of kings o'erturned, 
The broken altars of forgotten gods, 



THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 



Foundations of old cities, and long streets 
Where never fall of human foot is heard 
Upon the desolate pavement. I behold 
Dim glimmerings of lost jewels far within 
The sleeping waters, diamond, sardonyx, 
Ruby and topaz, pearl and chrysolite, 
Once glittering at the banquet on fair brows 
That long ago were dust ; and all around, 
Strewn on the waters of that silent sea, 
Are withering bridal wreaths, and glossy locks 
Shorn from fair brows by loving hands, and scrolls 
O'erwritten, — haply with fond words of love 
And vows of friendship — and fair pages flung 
Fresh from the printer's engine. There they lie 
A moment and then sink away from sight. 




- -... 



THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 



I look, and the quick tears are in my eyes, 
For I behold, in every one of these, 
A blighted hope, a separate history 
Of human sorrow, telling of dear ties 
Suddenly broken, dreams of happiness 
Dissolved in air, and happy days, too brief, 
That sorrowfully ended, and I think 
How painfully must the poor heart have beat 
In bosoms without number, as the blow 
Was struck that slew their hope or broke their 
peace. 

Sadly I turn, and look before, where yet 
The Flood must pass, and I behold a mist 



THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 



Where swarm dissolving forms, the brood of Hope, 
Divinely fair, that rest on banks of flowers 
Or wander among rainbows, fading soon 
And reappearing, haply giving place 
To shapes of grisly aspect, such as Fear 
Molds from the idle air ; where serpents lift 
The head to strike, and skeletons stretch forth 
The bony arm in menace. Further on 
A belt of darkness seems to bar the way, 
Long, low and distant, where the Life that Is 
Touches the Life to Come. The Flood of Years 
Rolls toward it, near and nearer. It must pass 
That dismal barrier. What is there beyond ? 
Hear what the wise and good have said. 



THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 



Beyond 
That belt of darkness still the years roll on 
More gently, but with not less mighty sweep. 
They gather up again and softly bear 
All the sweet lives that late were overwhelmed 
And lost to sio^ht — all that in them was grood, 
Noble, and truly great and worthy of love — 
The lives of infants and ingenuous youths, 
Sages and saintly women who have made 
Their households happy — all are raised and borne 
By that great current in its onward sweep, 
Wandering and rippling with caressing waves 
Around green islands, fragrant with the breath 



Of flowers that never wither. 







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THE ELOOD OE' YEARS. 



So they pass, 
From stage to stage, along the shining course 
Of that fair river broadening like a sea. 
As its smooth eddies curl along their way, 
They bring old friends together ; hands are clasped 
In joy unspeakable ; the mother's arms 
Again are folded round the child she loved 
And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now, 
Or but remembered to make sweet the hour 
That overpays them ; wounded hearts that bled 
Or broke are healed forever. 



THE FLOOD OF YEARS. 



In the room 
Of this grief-shadowed Present there shall be 
A Present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw 
The heart, and never shall a tender tie 
Be broken — in whose reign the eternal Change 
That waits on growth and action shall proceed 
With everlasting Concord hand in hand. 



- 



AMONG 



HE TREES 







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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 




Oh ye who love to overhang the springs, 
And stand by running waters, ye whose bou< 
Make beautiful the rocks o'er which they play, 
Who pile with foliage the great hills, and rear 
A paradise upon the lonely plain, 
"frees of the forest and the open field 
Have ye no sense of being ? 




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Does the air, 
The pure air, which I breathe with gladness, pass 
In gushes o'er your delicate lungs, your leaves, ,j»i 
All unenjoyed ? When on your Winter-sleep 
The sun shines warm, have ye no dreams of Spring? 
And, when the glorious Spring-time comes at last, 
Have ye no joy of all your bursting buds, 
And fragrant blooms, and melody of birds 
To which your young leaves shiver ? 



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Do ye strive 
And wrestle with the wind, yet know it not ? 
Feel ye no glory in your strength when he, 
The exhausted Blusterer, flies beyond the hills, 
And leaves you stronger yet ? Or have ye not 
A sense of loss when he has stripped your leaves, 
Yet tender, and has splintered your fair boughs ? 
Does the loud bolt that smites you from the cloud 
And rends you, fall unfelt ? 



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Do there not run 
Strange shudderings through your fibers when 
the axe , : 

Is raised against you, and the shining blade "^ 
Deals blow on blow, until, with all their boughs, 
Your summits waver and ye fall to earth ? . 






Know ye no sadness when the hurricane 
Has swept the wood and snapped its sturdy stems 
Asunder, or has wrenched, from out the soil, 
The mightiest with their circles of strong roots, 
And piled the ruin all along his path ? 

Nay, doubt we not that under the rough rind, 
In the green veins of these fair growths of earth, 
There dwells a nature that receives delight 
From all the gentle processes of life, 
And shrinks from loss of being. Dim and faint 
May be the sense of pleasure and of pain, 
As in our dreams ; but, haply, real still. 



:.' 





Our sorrows touch you not. We watch beside 
The beds of those who languish or who die, 
And minister in sadness, while our hearts 
Offer perpetual prayer for life and ease 
And health to the beloved sufferers. 
But ye, while anxious fear and fainting hope 
Are in our chambers, ye rejoice without. 
The funeral goes forth ; a silent train 
Moves slowly from the desolate home ; our hearts 
Are breaking as we lay away the loved, 
Whom we shall see no more, in their last rest, 
Their little cells within the burial-place. 




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Ye have no part in this distress ; for still "\m 

The February sunshine steeps your boughs 
And tints the buds and swells the leaves within ; 
While the song-sparrow, warbling from her perch, 
Tells you that Spring is near. 








The wind of May 
Is sweet with breath of orchards, in whose boughs 
The bees and every insect of the air 
Make a perpetual murmur of delight, 
And by whose flowers the humming-bird hangs poised 
In air, and draws their sweets and darts away. 
The linden, in the fervors of July, 
Hums with a louder concert. When the wind 
Sweeps the broad forest in its summer prime, 
As when some master-hand exulting sweeps 
The keys of some great organ, ye give forth 
The music of the woodland depths, a hymn 
Of gladness and of thanks. 




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The hermit-thrush 
Pipes his sweet note to make your arches ring, 
The faithful robin, from the wayside elm, 
Carols all day to cheer his sitting mate. 
And when the Autumn comes, the kings of earth, 
In all their majesty, are not arrayed 
As ye are, clothing the broad mountain-side, 
And spotting the smooth vales with red and 

gold. 
While, swaying to the sudden breeze, ye flingjj 
Your nuts to earth, and the brisk squirrel 

comes P 

To gather them, and barks with childish glee, 
And scampers with them to his hollow oak. 



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Thus, as the seasons pass, ye keep alive 
The cheerfulness of nature, till in time 
The constant misery which wrings the heart 
Relents, and we rejoice with you again, ^ 
And glory in your beauty ; till once more 
We look with pleasure on your vanished leaves, 
That gayly glance in sunshine, and can hear, 
Delighted, the soft answer which your boughs 
Utter in whispers to the babbling brook. 



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I know not who, but thank him that h 

left 

The tree to flourish where the acorn fell, 
And join these later days to that far time 
While yet the Indian hunter drew the bow 
In the dim woods, and the white woodman first 
Opened these fields to sunshine, turned the soil 
And strewed the wheat. An unremembered 

Past 
Broods, like a presence, 'mid the long gray 

boughs 
Of this old tree, which has outlived so long 
The fitting generations of mankind. 



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Ye have no history. I ask in vain -•sd^?^ 

Who planted on the slope this lofty group $$ : 
Of ancient pear-trees that with spring-time burst -l^f? 
Into such breadth of bloom. One bears a scar 
Where the quick lightning scored its trunk, yet 
still , 

It feels the breath of Spring, and every May 
Is white with blossoms. Who it was that laid ^ 
Their infant roots in earth, and tenderly % 
Cherished the delicate sprays, I ask in vain, 
Yet bless the unknown hand to which I owe 
This annual festival of bees, these songs fv 
Of birds within their leafy screen, these shouts 
Of joy from children gathering up the fruit 
Shaken in August from the willing boughs. 5 f| 



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Ye that my hands have planted, or have spared, % 

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Beside the way, or in the orchard-ground, '•'SiF i 
Or in the open meadow, ye whose boughs 
With every summer spread a wider shade, 
Whose herd in coming years shall lie at rest 
Beneath your noontide shelter ? . ^«^^N 





Who shall pluck 
Your ripened fruit ? who grave, as was the wont^ ^1 
Of simple pastoral ages, on the rind 
Of my smooth beeches some beloved name ? 
Idly I ask ; yet may the eyes that look 
Upon you, in your later, nobler growth 
Look also on a nobler age than ours ; 





An age when, in the eternal strife between 

Evil and Good, the Power of Good shall win 

A grander mastery ; when kings no more ^%4 

Shall summon millions from the plough to learrq 

The trade of slaughter, and of populous realms ^ 

Make camps of war ; when in our younger land 

The hand of ruffian Violence, that now 

Is insolently raised to smite, shall fall 

Unnerved before the calm rebuke of law, 

And Fraud, his sly confederate shrink, in shame, vJ^W^p) 

Back to his covert, and forego his prey. Gi^V^/ 



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